


forget me not when the snow falls

by lazulila



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulila/pseuds/lazulila
Summary: Three years after Felix leaves for parts unknown, Sylvain accepts the bride that his parents have chosen for him. Resigned as one can be to a marriage he never wanted, smile as empty as he feels, he welcomes their guests, plays his part.And then arrives a storm.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 138
Collections: Sylvix Gift Exchange 2020





	forget me not when the snow falls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Princess_Kurenai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Kurenai/gifts).



> pinch hit! merry late sylvixmas! sylvix for everyone! sylvix for me! sylvix for you! sylvix for princess_kurenai!!❄

Alone, he navigates the trail, barely visible after last night’s storm. Snow blows through the treetops, winding between branches and swaying fir boughs, before settling wordlessly to the ground.

His hair and clothes are speckled with frosty white, breath coming out as heated fogs. Beside him, his horse huffs, shaking his head to rid himself of them, but complains no more.

Winter comes early in Faerghus. Earlier, the further away from the warmer south one goes.

The snow is nearly up to his knees now, and still he treads on. An icy wind pushes at his back, urging him on.

Within a few more hours, he’ll be coming out of the forest thickets, and upon the mountain town in which the Fraldarius estate sits.

Whether he is ready to be back home or not, to perhaps take up the mantle that once tried to lay itself across his shoulders…he’s not sure yet.

Despite that, he is on his way.

He’s not sure why _now_ , why he had turned north when he had intended to go east.

The wind picks up again, tearing at his cloak and whipping his hair along its insistent tendrils. Bringing his eyes up and to the horizon of the steep mountains, the ice waiting in patient wisdom.

Calling him home.

-♦♦♦-

He certainly must make a sight, emerging from the line of trees at ruby-red sunset. Disheveled, alone, striding into the keep with his chin held as high as the day he had left it.

Villagers stop and stare, some surely recognizing him. Their murmurs irritate him, but he pushes them from his field of attention.

_The Master Fraldarius._

_Rodrigue’s boy is home._

_Young Duke Fraldarius…_

Despite his time away, no one would dare question his place here. He’d put them in theirs, if they thought to try.

As though he had been here just this morning, he allows the stablehand to take his horse, and finds his childhood home of dark stone much as he left it. A moment frozen in time, like so many things of these ice-covered lands.

The servants startle and bustle at his sudden presence, nervously tell him that no, his uncle is not home at the moment.

He finds out the reason why when he reaches the office.

A handful of open letters and documents sit on the desk, and he doesn’t expect to find much at first. Routine Kingdom matters, queries from local minor lords, some official correspondence.

His wandering eye stops on a name, which turns out to be a…invitation.

Felix’s breath stops short in his chest, while his fingertips tingle and numb, as though they were bare in the cold.

-♦♦♦-

In the end, he only spends a few hours in the Fraldarius manor. He bathes, he eats, though none of it tastes like a damn thing. The rage comes upon him in quick, dramatic waves, in turn with confusion, and though he refuses to call it by name, bereavement.

He keeps returning to the wedding invitation, hoping he’s misread, or misunderstood something. Every time he storms out of the office, he berates himself, for being unable to accept the reality that has slapped him across the face.

Ultimately, the anger roils in him more than anything else, so much so that the few hours of sleep he tries to catch in his old quarters elude him.

By daybreak, he is in the yard again and asking for his horse.

With little more than some provisions and the cloak around his shoulders, keeping him warm against the frigid morning, he sets off again. Racing westward, away from the rising sun and to the only one that matters to him.

-♦♦♦-

Guests have already begun arriving at the Gautier estate. Normally desolate for so much as a sign of laughter, the halls are now filled with it, the mansion teeming with dozens of people. Most of whose names he barely remembers, and whose faces don’t matter even as much as that.

But here he is at the door, all smiles and handshakes, as fake as the well-wishes from all those people whom he greets.

Beside him stands his bride-to-be: Svetlana Evelyn Cyneburga. Lovely, quiet, prim and proper as a daughter-in-law his parents could ever want. Her elder brother had married a minor lord two years back, effectively doubling their territory, as well as adding substantially to their wealth and influence. At long last, the family had finally made a mark on the landscape of the remaining Faerghan nobility.

During the war, they had generously contributed their resources to the resistance of the Empire, especially to the Gautiers. But favors came at a price, and good turns, politically, deserved another.

And when the dust settled, and the grass grew over blood-soaked fields, they had called upon his parents for it.

They wanted a match for their of-age daughter. Their Crested son, still _miraculously_ a bachelor, was a suitable one for their newfound prosperity and good standing within the courts.

His hand had been sold at a price they had liked.

When the flow of arrivals slows to a trickle, he offers to see his fiance inside, for a seat beside the warm hearth. With a curtsey and a blush, she accepts.

He takes one last look out at the landscape. The steep mountain trails, the waves of mountaintops and the manor roofs that peek between the trees. Spires and towers, as earthen-colored as the surrounding nature itself, snow and frost clinging to the dappled roof tiles. A flock of birds rises from a row of trees, briefly catching his attention.

One last sigh, one more pin to keep his smile in place, and then he follows her inside.

The sky is clear, even when everything else is very much not.

-♦♦♦-

Ingrid is the first to see him, recognize him.

“Felix…? Felix!”

Forgetting all her manners at once, she abandons whatever conversation she was having with some noble or another, breaking instantly to a sprint in her long winter gown. She picks up her skirts in gloved hands to fly down the hill and jump into him, throwing her arms around his neck to hug him for all he’s worth.

“Goddess above,” She cries into his neck, never minding how the fur of her hood is threatening to push its way into his mouth. “Felix, I can’t believe it! Where have you _been?_ ”

He’s not sure how to answer. Where, indeed?

Ignoring the gaggle of people who are watching, he wraps his arms around her back, and holds her close. Breathes in her familiar scent while she falls to tears, allowing her to smother him in a gesture he’d normally never allow.

He must have frightened her to death.

Her, and others.

This, for her, he can do.

-♦♦♦-

An unmissable ripple makes its way along the guests. Titters and frenzied whispers suggest an interruption to their delicate festivities and even more fragile sensibilities.

Frowning slightly, Sylvain rises to go see whatever is the matter. To, also, soothe the worries of his fretting bride, because that’s what, as her groom, he should do.

Making his way through the crowd, he hears mutterings of a ruffian bothering Lady Galatea, and he vaguely expects some wayward survivor of the war. Maybe just wandering through, a deserter, perhaps. Ingrid can handle herself just fine without him, but nonetheless, he makes his way outside.

Annette rushes past him in a red-gold blur, almost tripping on her heeled boots and dark navy cloak flying out behind her, joining Ingrid in showering said _ruffian_ in a relieved, emotional embrace.

Because then they part, it takes a few blissfully ignorant moments for his brain to kick in and catch up with his eyes, and he understands.

Copper eyes aglow in the wintry sun, rough-cut face sharp and glowing as the steel on his belt, stands Felix.

Among the well dressed sea of nobles, he stands out. In worn, practical traveler’s clothing of leather and rough-woven fabric, Felix pays no more mind to their scandalized gawking than he ever did. His hair’s grown out, bangs chopped to hang messily around his face. The rest, pulled back in a hasty tie at the nape of his neck.

Sylvain’s fake smile cracks, gives way to a real one. In painful disbelief, elated; thrilled, that for once, the Goddess has something nice to say about his fate.

“ _Fe_ —”

At his voice, Felix looks up, catching him in sienna glare. A hundred emotions are locked away behind it, even as a hundred of his own rise with the wind to flutter among the scattering snowflakes.

“Are you serious? Is it really you, after all this time?”

A smirk, sharp and sly and _beautiful_ as the deadly ice it lives in. “I guess it _has_ been a while, hasn’t it?”

His patience for affection seems to be able to withstand one more, allowing Sylvain to barrel into him, wrap him up in arms that can’t believe had ever let him _go._

“Where have you been, Fe? _Where?”_

“Put me down, you lumbering ass.”

“Charming as always, I see.”

Holding him at arms’ length now, sweeping his gaze over Felix from head to toe, Sylvain lets out a laugh, maybe even as crazed as he feels. “And…here. Why are you here? _Now?_ _Here?_ Not that—not that you’re not welcome of course, but just…wow. Fe…”

Felix’s gaze cools to the icy fire that he knows so well, that he knows like a brand on his very skin. He’s not smiling anymore, and Sylvain recognizes the expression that settles in its place. The one that tells him he’s about to be cut alive.

“And miss you being the biggest damned fool in Fodlan?”

-♦♦♦-

Once it’s revealed who the unexpected guest is, people make sickeningly short work of adjusting to the presence of the Duke Fraldarius.

Estranged from his position or no, in roughed up traveler’s clothing and unkempt from days of riding, he’s still head of one of the most noble bloodlines of the continent.

The king himself shares nothing but elation at his presence, and that says all they need to in deciding whether or not to accept him back into their gilded folds.

In response, he evades every disgusting, attempted schmoozing. None too gently, either. Sylvain watches every one from a distance, pretending to be more interested in his fiance’s company.

Meanwhile, the fake smile that he’s worn all day somehow feels worse than a simple white lie. It’s an outright _farce._

Every single day that Felix had been gone, Sylvain wanted nothing more than for him to be back. Here. _Here._ Wanted to wake up in the morning and find that his disappearance had been just a mistake, a trick of the light. And that he’d been wrong, that Felix was right _here_ — 

And he’d been proven right until the one day that he would never have wanted Felix to see.

-♦♦♦-

Warm halls and blazing fires, sweet with wood smoke and merriment that offers no comfort. The socialite niceness churns his stomach, the very reason for their gathering turning the muscle in his chest to rot.

Three years have passed since he left. Five years, since he had seen the Gautier keep, large enough to house an army. Today, it's dressed up to look less like a fort and more like a home.

But it’s just, as always, for the appearances.

People try to talk to him, and he ignores it. Once he learns of his nephew’s appearance, his uncle is as shocked to see him there as everyone else.

“Are you coming home, at last?” He asks, “It is your birthright, after all.”

“Maybe.”

He’d always been more even keeled than his father, whose temper had been passed to his sons. With a moment of quiet consideration, he lets this go without much more comment than, “You have been sorely missed.”

Felix almost scoffs.

Has he, now?

-♦♦♦-

The banquet lasts for hours, and feels for hours longer than it should.

Felix’s presence has lit a match on his skin, gradually and invisibly burning its way across every inch. He can’t help but be hyper aware of him now, as Felix wipes crumbs from the corner of Ingrid’s mouth, and bears Annette’s spontaneous, long-lasting embraces. Withstands Mercedes pulling him to a quiet corner to fix his hair, and Bernadetta throwing her arms around his waist before she runs away with an embarrassed squeak into her hands.

Sylvain’s eyes catch the way his hair flows over his shoulder, and how the light flares blue winter sky and amber candlelight across ivory skin. The very little that’s exposed, above his high collar.

Then he pulls off his riding gloves, and all at once, the memories begin to rush back.

How Sylvain had once spent long evenings pressing kisses to those hands, to sword callouses new and old. Clumsy, honest touches that soothed the worst parts of every beast inside him that tried every day to claw him open from the inside out. Tamed them with a hand knowing and fair, accepting the worst and forcibly drawing out the best—whatever he saw that was.

The raspy timbre of his voice that says so little, but tells _everything_ —his silences, as meaningful as his words.

Against it, every other sound is drowned out, far away, fuzzy and dull while his ears tune into the familiar sound of Felix admonishing someone—Dimitri, this time, criticizing his obvious lack of rest.

Reading those, and everything in between, had been so natural to him, once. It was all he had ever needed, and ever wanted, ever again.

But things are different now. They are different. This is a Felix gone for years, and returned with even less warning than how he’d left. Grown up, grown separate, vines that twisted off the branch in different directions, even when he had thought they would grow entwined.

This understanding had, those three years ago, hollowed him out. Enough to leave the space and cavern echo chambers of his own loneliness. And in time, bitter acceptance. Ready to live out the future he always knew he’d one day face.

Except now, here was a spark, a flare in the northern dark that threatened a hope he dare not have.

Felix is too late, and so is Sylvain.

In just two more days, by this time, he will be a married man.

Yet, the show must go on.

He laughs his laughs, smiles his smiles, plays his part as a puppet pulled by strings he’d just as soon throw off, if he could.

He had wanted to, once upon a time.

Felix had made him want to.

But then, Felix had left.

Been gone with barely a goodbye and with little to say about his return, and even Sylvain had to know what that meant.

_Moron,_ he tells himself.

_Stop._

Because he still searches for him in the crowd without thinking. Finds him across the hall, leaning his shoulder up against a stone column.

Watching him back.

Arms crossed over a proud chest and a prouder heart, eyes like a phoenix fire that wills him to burn.

Beckons him.

Sylvain knows what that look means, even if he can’t heed it.

As the evening drags on, Sylvain catches a few stories from afar, the ones that friends like Ashe are able to beg from him. He’d wandered along the roads of the collapsed Fodlan, earning his coin with steel and sleeping beneath stars that he could see from the very highest mountains of the Alliance, as well as from the coast at the edge of the Brionic Plateau.

It’s obvious that he hadn’t enjoyed much luxury on his journeys; his knuckles are rough and scarred, weather-bitten. Faint shadows fall beneath his eyes, and a new, silk-thin scar that crawls up and across one temple. A nearly healed bruise on his jaw that Sylvain longs to kiss the rest of the way gone.

Instead, he simply goes along with it all, as he has almost always done. Even if he does forget to put his hand on his fiance’s waist, unable to recall the color of her eyes in the wake of the sweet, nostalgic copper lens that his world has suddenly been tinted with.

Nonetheless, he escorts her to her quarters at the end of the night like any true gentleman would. She hovers with him in the hallway, expectant. Rather than offer to see her inside, he kisses the top of her head, and bids her goodnight.

Once he’s around the corner and out of sight, he hears her enter, alone, the lock clicking shut behind her.

Although exhausted in more ways than one, he finds himself returning to the parlor. The fire is going as strong as the whiskey he pours for himself, a deep amber that burns his throat. Reminds him of all the time he had spent drowned in that color.

“Sylvain.”

“Felix.”

He smiles first at the glass in his hand, and then at the man who’s appeared in the doorway.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Cutting to the chase, as always.

“Having a drink. Care to join me?”

Felix’s posture is keen as a wolf. His mouth tightens, while long, quiet strides carry him across the expensive rug, towards the much more expensive Gautier heir. Sylvain wishes he doesn’t notice the tilt of his hips, the lines of his legs in dark fitted trousers and laced, knee-length boots that accentuate both.

And lastly, he wishes he doesn’t catch the flash line of throat below a loosened collar, or the upward tilt of his jaw.

“I need some answers from you.”

“Well,” Sylvain turns back to the cabinet, pulling out a second glass and refilling both. “That makes two of us.”

A flash of anger sparks across Felix’s face. Then he quashes it, lip quirking in annoyance while he crosses his arms.

_“Fine._ ” He concedes, the word a bite. “But you had better have a good reason as to why I’ve come back to you getting _married_ , of all the things.”

“I was always going to have to get married to some noble lady or another.” Sylvain shrugs. The bottle _thunks_ softly upon aged wood, a little too loudly, sucked right up into the tension of the air.

When he offers the glass, Felix stares at it, then at him, before carefully taking it between roughened fingers.

“You _don’t_ have to.” Felix argues. “It’s your own damn life. Shouldn’t you be the one to live it?”

“Oh, I’d love to.” Sylvain drawls, pausing for a sip. “But I always knew this was in the cards for me. I just got tired of trying to run from it.”

While Felix had been off doing…whatever it is he’s been doing, Sylvain had fended off suitor after suitor, slowly taking over work from his ageing parents who fought him every step of the way. They still cling to old traditions, while Sylvain has been trying to make new ones, in line with the kinder, more equal world that their king and archbishop are trying to build.

Concessions had to be made, and something had to give; and when they deigned to give him away to a high enough bid, he hadn’t the will to fight it.

After all, his will to fight was gone.

“It’s not running,” Felix says firmly. “It’s not _running_ to refuse a marriage that will make you miserable.”

“If not her, it would just be another one.”

Felix’s face curdles.

“Is that right?”

“Not everyone can just take off and _vanish_ for three years, Fe.” Sylvain sighs, swilling the liquid in his glass. “Did you come back just to tell me off?”

“Don’t _bullshit_ me,” Felix snaps, throwing back the rest of the whiskey, _slamming_ the cup on the nearby table. “You never _had_ to do this.”

“I guess. But my parents were getting very _antsy_ , you see. They wanted their little Crest grandkids, and who else is there to grant them?”

“You don’t _owe_ them your entire life.”

“No, but I do, unfortunately, owe them a lot. This life of luxury and privilege that I, and _you,_ by the way, have been born into, has always had certain expectations.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re _obligated_ to them.”

“Actually, kinda. If I’m to take over the good old family name, there are some things that just come with the territory. I’ve always understood that, Felix, for better or worse.”

“But you _hate_ it.” Felix grits out. All teeth and vitriol, “You always did. I _know_ you did.”

“Yeah. Well. What choice did I have?”

“You _had_ a choice,” Felix all but snarls, vicious and furious, taking a dangerous step forward. Dangerous, dangerous, “You _still_ have a choice—”

“Alright, then. Go on, tell me, Felix, what _should_ _I do?_ ”

Sylvain thought he’d buried all his anger a long time ago, hoping he’d never have to look at it again; but mere seconds in Felix’s presence, and the ground is splitting, cracking. Ripped open like a sutured wound, bleeding through the bandages.

Maybe he sets down the glass a little too harshly; maybe he should mind the roiling, flaring pit that his temper is quickly rising from. In the moment, it has nowhere else to go but out.

“Six years of war, three more of those conceited, self-serving snobs bothering me day in and day out. The entire damn country a ruin, and my parents breathing down my neck, asking when I was going to take it all seriously and settle down, because _that_ was my duty. What was I supposed to do?”

Part of him says to _stop._

“I was _alone_. I was alone, because you went ahead and _left_ , and—I just didn’t see the point in trying to argue anymore. But by all means, show up again after all this time on your little soul-searching adventures to tell me how I’m fucking up again.”

With a sigh, he drops his forehead into his hand, fingers digging into his temples.

Barely a few hours, and they’re already arguing. All he had to do was _keep it together_ , let the storm that is Felix Fraldarius run its course and see itself back out, and he couldn’t even do that.

And suddenly, his anger is burned out all over again. Ash in his mouth, while visions rise to the forefront, although he tries to push them back. Remembers morning light against perfect, battle-scarred skin, shy blushes and flustered brushes of lips. Blurs of clear, vivid color, illuminated against the back of his eyelids.

The room is quiet, all except for his harried breaths. Loud, too loud, until he takes one last sigh, and lets that die to silence, too.

“…You should have come with me.”

“…What?”

Raising his head, Sylvain turns.

The expression Felix wears is something painful and familiar; stubbornness is carved into every line of him, always has been, even as he tries to mask the hurt that hides in the deep sienna of his eyes, tugs at the tense line of his mouth.

“You should,” Felix repeats. Slowly, word-by-word. “You should have come with me.”

Sylvain stares.

“I. I wanted you to.”

The fire crackles. Sylvain feels his jaw drop, although there’s no words waiting to come.

“Why,” He breathes, finally, after a prolonged silence; even he can hear the desperation in his voice. “Why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you _ask_ me to?”

“…Because…” Felix frowns, his hands curling into fists at his side.

“Because _why_ , Felix?” He demands, harsher than he means to be, his fingers curling along the grooved, carved wood of the shelf’s edge. A splinter bites into his palm, but he doesn’t care; he needs to hear this. “Why didn’t you _say_ something? Anything, other than just—just up and _leaving._ ”

“Because you had a _place_ here.” Felix’s voice shakes, trembling with the strain of breaking himself open. “You talked about all you dreamed of for a new Fodlan. You were working hard, you were excited for it. And I didn’t want to rip you away from it.”

Days of meetings that left them fatigued and angry, arguing with stubborn old coots who refused to bend to new life. Nights of talking of a new, united country, without war, where the lines between aristocracy and peasantry blurred.

Where a person’s wealth didn’t mean the difference between life and death, and a child could be named heir with or without a Crest. A world where a Crest didn’t mean one was owed more dignity, a better chance at life, than someone without.

A country, a world, where _everyone_ could prosper. A just and equal one, whose fate lay in the hands who held it. And for now, that was them.

Felix remembers how Sylvain had spoken of it, even as he chided him for being too idealistic. For hoping for too much, too quickly.

Even if he too, shared that vision.

“Those dreams,” Sylvain says slowly, “Had you in it, you know. I couldn’t see a future of mine without you in it, until that’s all I had. After that, it didn’t matter.”

A wave of surprise crashes across Felix’s face, eyes wide. Still as a winter lake.

“You still…”

Weary, Sylvain drags a hand over his face.

“…I…”

As a child, Felix would cry because he felt more than he had the ability to express otherwise. He has always felt so _deeply_ , so _much_ , that maybe there aren’t words strong enough for the emotions he has.

Adulthood had given him anger, and even that, Sylvain understands. Because while things hadn’t always been _easy_ with Felix, he had loved reading every part of him that Felix was willing to share. His frustration, his happiness, his ambitions and, most difficult for him to show of all: his sadness.

His shyness, his boldness; and then, his love.

“…Why did you come back, Felix? Why now?”

Felix’s lips part, about to speak, before he hesitates. Clenches his jaw shut, every part of him shutting down like a slow motion flinch as Sylvain demands, “What are _you_ thinking by—by showing up, out of the blue, right before my goddamn _wedding?_ ”

“I didn’t plan for it that way.”

“You’re right, by the way. I never wanted this. But it’s what I’ve got. What do you _expect_ from me, _now_ of all times?”

“I don’t— _Sylvain—_ ”

“Stop right there.” Sylvain squares his shoulders, every breath punching through his chest in a painful one-two, “I’ll always value our friendship, Felix. _Always._ Would do anything for you. But this time—”

“…No,” Shaking his head, Felix steps forward, “Wait. Sylvain, just listen—”

“You’re too late.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology crashes to the floor. Silent. Deafening as shattering glass, bursting to white noise and busted eardrums.

Sylvain’s eyes find Felix’s. Everything they can’t say, passing in a thousand shades of grief between them.

Without another word, Felix turns, and disappears from the light of the hearth, into the pitch-black hallway beyond the threshold.

And by the time his footsteps have faded, Sylvain has sunken deep into an armchair, his face in his hands.

-♦♦♦-

That night, Sylvain spends hours trying to sleep. Instead, he tosses and turns, in melodramatic, symbolic turmoil of the lightning strike that has so kindly and unmercifully ripped him a new one.

In the spaces between waking and sleep, he half-dreams.

Gentle whispers and softer kisses turned rough, halfway _maybe, maybe_ promises that neither were courageous enough to mean all the way, in the stupid, chicken way that young men do.

Nights on the war trail, talking of the days when the fighting would be a thing of the past. Afraid to wish for anything too much out loud, in case by the end of the next battle, only one, or neither of them, would be standing.

Cuts and bruises, both inside and out. A terrible three days after a sword had pierced through Sylvain’s armor, and it didn’t seem certain that he’d live. The pain had been like nothing he’d ever known, every breath an exercise in agony. So very tired, but afraid to let sleep take him, in case it didn’t let him go.

He didn’t say it, but he was afraid.

He didn’t say it, but he might have been relieved.

Felix hadn’t budged from his side. Chastised him for slacking on training all that time, even while his voice warbled with preemptive grief, willing him to take one more breath, bolting for a healer whenever Sylvain so much as flinched in pain.

When the sun went down, Felix curled up beside him on the blood stained bedroll, threatening to kill Sylvain himself if he so much thought about breaking their promise.

Under a moonless night, Sylvain stares at his ceiling, thinking of the days after.

Of Felix’s smiles, rare and glorious as a flower blooming among snow. How they snipped and bantered with each other when on kitchen duty, slogging through cleaning the stables and doing the camp laundry.

That sure grip of his on a sword hilt, and how he grasped Sylvain’s hand the same way; as though it were a lifeline. Something precious and powerful, something that he could _trust._

He aches, recalling the weight of Felix’s head on Sylvain’s chest at the end of each day, lashes falling low to let those strong eyes rest at last.

When he closes his own eyes, he can almost imagine it, as if. As if he were really there. As if it were yesterday, that he would awaken with Felix in his arms. Maybe with some hair in his mouth, and some drool on his shirt if he were really lucky.

He opens them again when the sun rises, only to find that he is wrong again. That Felix is here, but not _here._

Here, but never further from him.

-♦♦♦-

 _I’m leaving,_ Felix had said one morning. Aglow in golden morning thrall, looking so much freer when he saw the horizon opening for him.

 _To where?_ , Sylvain had asked.

_I’m not entirely sure yet. But I can’t stay here, twiddling my thumbs and letting my sword rust._

The entire conversation has played itself out in Sylvain’s head a million times. Often, he tries to imagine it going differently. Testing slightly different words, searching for the ones that would change Felix’s mind.

In the end, though, he couldn’t say them.

Who was he, after all, to hold Felix back?

-♦♦♦-

The entire next morning spends itself snowing, steady and quiet. It drifts by the windows, gathering at the corners of the glass.

It’s up to Sylvain’s calves when he ventures outside for a few minutes alone, before all the guests are back to pay him and his lovely bride more respects.

Alone, blissfully alone, he walks the yard, making tracks in the fresh fall. Unsure of where he’s going, where he’s gone wrong, but going forward anyway.

From the corner of his eye, he spots a shadow, and stops.

Still an early riser, Felix is already awake. Awake, and watching him from the fence, just before the line of trees that disappear into the forest. With all the silent power of sun sparks against a mountain’s peak, he is immovable and undecipherable. As enticing as he is untouchable.

For a long, long moment, they gaze at each other. Neither moving, as though it is a canyon that separates them, and not twenty feet of unbroken snow.

Flakes collect in Felix’s dark hair, shine like silver. Cheeks, nose, flushed coral pink with the cold. The ragged ends of his cloak flutter against his knees, rendering his less of a man than some ethereal winter fae.

Sylvain dreams awake.

Dreams of sprinting the distance and tackling Felix into the snow, like when they were kids.

Of kissing him until his shrieks turn to laughs, like when they were teenagers. Shoving his freezing hands under Felix’s clothes to turn them to shrieks again, while he writhed and kicked and threw Sylvain off him, only to tumble back with him, looking for his own victory.

Would find it later, when they fell into bed and tumbled around the sheets instead.

All of that comes to mind now, as much as the ring he always imagined putting on Felix’s finger, the one he’d had ready three years ago, ready to take the leap, and Felix—

Felix had left.

So instead of doing any of those things, Sylvain turns and walks back the way he came, ignoring the wild embers that light to blazes, burning the back of his neck.

-♦♦♦-

Felix stays scarce for the entire day. He only appears along the edges, prowling about with silent hunter’s grace.

Yet every head of dark hair turns Sylvain’s, as does every flicker of a cape and sharp laugh that could, maybe, be his, until he’s proven so disappointingly wrong.

Despite the cold, he continues to burn.

His chest catches knives every time he sees Felix through the crowd. They twist when Felix smiles for anyone else but him.

Meanwhile, he tries to smile himself; at Svetlana, at his beaming future in-laws, and it’s never felt more fake. By noon, his face is aching with the strain.

“I know you’re busy,” Ingrid cautions him when they catch a moment alone, “But you might want to talk to Felix when you have the chance.”

“And what am I to say?” Sylvain asks jovially, and she cuts him a dry look. “ _Hey, good to see you, thanks for showing up?”_

“From what he says, he doesn’t intend to stay long,” She informs him sternly. “And he may not give us any more warning than when he left, so if you have anything to say to him, you’d better do it quickly, or regret it later.”

Her green gaze is keen with understanding, and he knows as well as she does what it means that he can’t lift his head to meet it.

“Okay, okay,” Sylvain breathes, almost breaking at the way she melts for him with loving worry. “Got it.”

Felix had blown in like a blizzard, and left a wreckage. But then he’d been spurned, and his pride won’t allow him to stay. Sylvain knows that according to Felix’s logic, there is nothing here for him.

He’s seen his beloved friends, and made his opinion of this sham marriage known. And the only thing left for him to do was leave again, and who knew if and when he would resurface?

So later that night, when the keep has quieted with evening’s fall, Sylvain seeks him out.

He’d been given a room in the Gautier manor, because of course he had been; the one he’d always taken when he had visited, two halls down from Sylvain’s own quarters.

With a bracing sigh, he knocks.

Luckily, footsteps approach from the other side, which means Felix isn’t gone _just_ yet.

The lock clicks open, the bolt turns, and the door swings open to reveal them both.

Clearly taken aback, Felix stands on the other side of the threshold. Blinks, glances over him, tilts his head in question.

“Hey,” Sylvain tries for casual. It comes out sheepish, and unsure. “Can we talk?”

A moment pulls long and taut between them, tense as the strings on a violin bow.

Felix’s surprise swiftly turns to disdain.

“What is there to talk about?”

“Well. For starters…” Sylvain rubs at the back of his neck, and puffs out a breath. “I owe you an apology.”

“An apology for _what?”_

He opens his mouth to talk when footsteps echo from down the hall, and the casual chatter of a couple of the servants interrupt him. Muffled, they move away, but it does prompt Sylvain to propose, “Maybe…we should keep this private. Do you mind?”

Another pause.

Then Felix nods, tight, and steps aside. Lets him in.

Quickly enough, Sylvain spots the pack on the floor beside the bed. While he tries very hard to _not notice_ the bed, and what happened the last time they had both found themselves in this very room.

As soon as the door closes shut, the air changes.

Like a sweep of thunder, rolling clouds that crackle with kinetic static that both try, rapidly and urgently, to ignore, as they shuffle awkwardly inside, and blindly away from each other.

When he turns to face Felix again, he’s glaring at the wall. Posture wound good and tight, tense as a snare. The apples of his cheeks are pink, as are the tips of his ears. His eyes dart to the bed, to Sylvain, and then away again.

It lights a second match on him, burning much more deeply than before.

“…So,” Felix eventually grinds out, jaw flexing, “What’s this apology you supposedly owe me?”

“For…”

_For giving up._

“For being an idiot.”

A huff. “You’ve always been an idiot.”

“So you’ve always made sure I’ve known.” With a weary smile, Sylvain lets his heavy heart sink as low as it wills to. “Always.”

Expression softening by a fraction, Felix shifts uneasily where he stands, the floor creaking below his boot.

Then he locks it up again, back into a look hard and mean that the war had made natural on his handsome face.

“I just…”

Running a hand through his hair, Sylvain sighs.

“I just… if this is the last time we see each other…I don’t want a fight to be the last thing we remember.”

“It won’t be the last time.”

Felix says it so certainly, as though it’s fact and not simply wishful thinking on Sylvain’s part.

“How can you know that?”

“Because I won’t let it. That’s all.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Felix raises his head then, his eyes climbing up, up, to find Sylvain’s. Lighting him up all over again, cutting right through him.

“Yeah.”

Sylvain’s hands ache. His fingers curl instinctively.

Felix holds him still, commanding with a stare that Sylvain would go to war all over again for.

“Felix.”

“What?”

All the words Sylvain wants to say are crammed up into the back of his throat, threatening to drown him alive.

“I’m sorry.”

“Again? What for, this time?”

“For…this.” Sylvain confesses. “All of this. But, I’ll, uh, say it in a nicer way. You’re right, okay? You’re right, and we both know it. I never wanted this marriage. I didn’t when I agreed to it, and I don’t now.”

Still, Felix holds himself far and away, although his brow lifts as he listens.

“I wanted to wait for you, Felix, but I didn’t know where you were. _No one_ did, or if you were planning on ever coming back, or even still _alive._ I just. I don’t understand. I _get_ it, but I don’t. Why didn’t you _say_ anything? Why didn’t you _ask_ , if you really wanted me to come with you?”

He’s rambling, which he knows Felix hates, and so he bites the rest of the words back, swallowing them down like hot, bitter tea.

Remorse draws a soft look over Felix’s face, though he tries to fight it, frowning, the corner of his mouth drawing tight.

“…I wasn’t myself, after the war ended.” He says.

No one was.

But he knows exactly what Felix means.

Readjusting to life after the war had been difficult. Difficult, complicated, different for everyone. After the fighting was done, Felix struggled for purpose without need for his sword. Still woke up surprised to find himself in a bed and not in a camp, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, as red and alive as his very blood.

Sylvain watched how the stress had started to eat him alive, made him irritable and devastated and fatigued in ways he couldn’t explain. He trained and practiced and sparred until his limbs shook, and still could not find rest.

Felix wasn’t mad or battle-crazed, didn’t wake from nightmares as many did. But something had to be done, because for all the love Sylvain had tried to soothe down his edges with, his beloved was still struggling.

No one, however, had suspected him to flee from it all. Called to freedom, the kind that he couldn’t find with expensive teas and peace treaties.

“…Are you really planning on leaving again?”

“I am.” Felix affirms from somewhere behind him. “What do I have to stay for?”

“Yeah…yeah.” Somehow, he laughs. Even if it does sound as dry as tree bark. “I thought you’d say something like that.”

“Hmph.”

“Then, why even bother to come back at all?”

Felix flinches back, and Sylvain groans.

“Wait, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tries again.

“What made you decide to, now? Of all times?”

“…I went back home on a whim, a few days ago. I saw the wedding invitation.”

“What,” Sylvain huffs a laugh against his palm. “So you came to crash my wedding? What were you going to do, sweep me off my feet? Dramatically declare your love and hope I would listen to reason and call it off?”

“Something like that.”

Lifting his head, Sylvain looks at him. Looks at his frayed edges, sees them hemmed and sewn anew, because Felix looks _back_. The bolt of a ballista could strike Sylvain square in the chest, and he doesn’t think it would have hit him any harder than this does.

“…You’re joking.”

“You of all people know that I don’t joke.”

“Felix…”

“You don’t love this girl, no more than you ever loved any of the others. Why would you waste your life away with her, then?”

One slender boot steps forward, taps on the hardwood floor. The other follows, and the click of Felix’s footsteps draw nearer. His gaze is focused, unwavering, as sure and as deadly as any strike he’s ever landed.

“You want to know why I came?”

Felix’s voice curls like smoke in the air, low and assured. Settling against his skin, intoxicating and seeping down to his bones.

“I came back because I wasn’t about to give you up that easily.”

Sylvain doesn’t move, fixated and shocked to quiet until Felix is right before him, meeting his eyes.

“I made a mistake, three years ago. I admit that. I didn’t ask you to come, and didn’t properly explain why. And if not that, I should have said when I’d be back. Given you that, at least.”

Felix’s hands are bare, gently clumsy. The first brush of his fingers over Sylvain’s cheek is enough to light the skin up aflame. Every breath that leaves his mouth in the sweetest words he’s ever heard are ones Sylvain wants to breathe in himself, keep them locked away in his chest like a treasure box.

“I’ll ask you now, then.” Felix whispers, lids already lowering, faltering, as though preparing for rejection. “Come with me.”

-♦♦♦-

Within an hour, they have their packs ready, and as though they had practiced this a hundred times and more, they slip out of the Gautier manor beneath a velvet black sky.

It’s easy to sneak out along the shadowed fences, towards the stable for their horses that they lead out the gate.

Snow continues to fall without a sound, sticking to eyelashes and hair and clothes while they make a crawling pace down the mountains. Not daring to light more than a single low lantern until they’re well out of sight of the estate.

As soon as they hit a clear trail, they ride, fast as they dare.

They ride for miles, ride until daybreak.

And still they go, stopping only to let the horses rest beside a makeshift fire. Warming their hands around it, and in each other’s. Relearning their shapes, navigating by stars.

For hours more they run, past tiny hamlets and bigger towns, don’t stop until midday when they come across a church, its towering spire unmissable from any point in the village.

With the blessings of the _oldest_ nun either of them had ever had the pleasure to meet (and they had met a lot, in their lifetimes), they slide rings on each other’s waiting fingers. Sylvain had kept the one that he’d planned to propose with, all the way back then, and as is revealed, between Felix’s burning cheeks and Sylvain’s wild grin and Abbotess Brigitte’s giggle, Felix had one ready too.

They’re gone less than two hours later, and they’re _married_.

And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

They find an inn at the next town over, just as the sun is setting.

Sylvain has always been the best at reading Felix’s subtleties, even though the look in his eyes is anything _but_ subtle, dark and promising and threatening all at once, as they’re handed the keys to the room.

No sooner have they ascended the stairs, locked the door behind them, than Felix has him up against the nearest wall. One long, lean line of muscle and power squeezing most of the breath from him, the sheer _beauty_ that stares back up at him taking the rest of it.

Barely does he have a moment to drink that in before Felix’s mouth is on him.

He’s missed how Felix’s waist forms beneath his hands. Like they’ve never been apart, their lips, chapped from a cold day of riding, have never felt better as they kiss, urgent and willing and _finally home_ , while a hundred miles from either one.

“Did you really think,” Felix growls against his skin, teeth scraping down Sylvain’s jaw, “That I would let you forget our promise?”

“Oh! Are we dying today?” Sylvain teases, hands wandering over Felix’s ribs, up and around to begin undoing his coat buttons.

Felix snorts, rolls his eyes. “The other one, you idiot.”

Sylvain laughs against Felix’s hair, nosing through midnight blue locks that he can’t _wait_ to wake up with his mouth full of.

“That we’d live together,” He clarifies, lower, slower, drawing the moment to sweet molasses, feeling the body go still and bashful in his arms. “That we’d live together until the end.”

“Yeah,” Felix murmurs against his neck. “That one.”

Drawing one hand up to tilt Felix’s chin, Sylvain breaks apart just enough to look down at him. Feels Felix’s chest expand against him with every breath, eyes somehow shy when he flicks them up towards Sylvain’s brown, lowering them again when he pushes their foreheads together.

Blindly, he reaches for Felix’s arm, traces his fingers down the line of cloth-covered muscle to feel for his hand, heart jumping at the feel of the ring on his finger.

_His_ ring. _His_ Felix.

His goddamn Felix Hugo Fraldarius, whom he can’t wait one second longer for another kiss.

So he doesn’t, bending low to catch his mouth, fingertips drawing a line from jaw to ear, all the way back to wind into his hair. Felix grunts against his mouth when he tries to free it from its tie and probably, accidentally, tugs it a little too hard; but he apologizes with a tongue teasing at his lip, and he thinks that maybe Felix forgives him.

“Idiot.” Felix says into the air between their lips, and Sylvain agrees with a soft little chuckle that gets lost into another kiss.

“For you, yes.” He promises. “Always.”

Hastily, he shoves the coat from Felix’s shoulders, and that spurs him into action, halfway tearing at Sylvain’s shirt, wasting no time in shoving his hands beneath it. Rough and charming, as he always is, while Sylvain sighs and leans his head down, teeth and lips and tongue working his untouched neck, working Felix up to harried gasps and muffled groans.

Remembers, after all this time, the spot beneath his jaw to make Felix’s entire body melt against him, even as his brows tighten and he clenches his lip between his teeth.

It begins to snow again as they step away from the wall, working open clothes and unable to be more than a hands’ width apart, skimming over bare skin and grasping at each other, careening and falling and collapsing with each other into the small bed.

It creaks, it smells like old soap and faintly of lavender, and neither of them care how coarse the sheets are.

They manage to turn on one single lantern, and that’s only because Sylvain doesn’t want to miss a single moment of Felix’s face turn to bliss as he trails sloppy kisses down his neck, over his collarbone.

Down the slope of Felix’s chest, over an assortment of old scars that he loves for their part in making up the canvas that is his husband’s, his _husband’s,_ body. Over muscle and skin and every wonderful human imperfection, he draws a map down over his ribs, pulls back to turn his attention to his legs instead.

He’s _always_ loved them, maybe not _the most_ , but pretty damn much, the list ever changing, as it does, when he discovers and rediscovers every part of the man he’s got caught in his devilish grasp.

Glances up through his lashes and drinks in the way Felix tilts his head back, leaving his neck so _temptingly_ exposed, even while he’s still preoccupied with the bite-laced kisses his mouth is so busy leaving up and down the inside of his thighs, up, up—

Felix nearly howls when Sylvain’s mouth opens for his cock, closes around it again, firm and warm.

“Fuck, _fuck_ —” His hips squirm instinctively, and Sylvain curls an arm under his leg and over his hip, locking him in place against him for everything he has planned.

Felix curses more, in broken words and various syllables of Sylvain’s name, into the back of his hand and into the air while Sylvain works his tongue up along his length, one hand holding it steady for him to suck and moan against.

It’s hot and hard against his tongue, dripping salty clear drops for him to lick up, and _holy hell_ , has it been so long for him, so long since he’d had Felix, that the sheets, that might as well be _burlap_ , feel like silk against his dick?

Apparently yes, yes it has been, because every press against the mattress is heaven.

But fortunately, he knows something even better, and Felix’s hand is in his hair, nails grazing his scalp.

“Syl—Sylvain, I—” He snarls, deep in his throat, it rumbling all the way down his chest.

He pulls off with that, mouth messy and jaw sore, his _throat_ sore.

Felix gives in easily when Sylvain leans in for a kiss, both hands coming up to grab at his shoulders, his face, back curling up and in so he can haul him in closer.

Slick and savory, the want of it all only waxing, never waning. Sylvain moans, parts his lips to let Felix slide his tongue against them, into his mouth, teeth catching already-flushed skin. He jerks slightly, when Felix’s hand frees itself from his hair to wrap around his hard, waiting prick, his grip perfect while he starts to stroke, to jerk him off, a little _too_ slowly.

“You’re,” Sylvain accuses, breathless, watching Felix’s mouth grow to a fiendish smirk. “You’re doing that on _purpose_ , you damn _tease—”_

“You’re the one taking so damn long.” Felix hisses back, sinking his teeth into the muscle between Sylvain’s neck and shoulder.

His tune, however, changes quickly when it comes to Sylvain’s fingers working at him, well-oiled, knowing exactly the places to reach, to stroke, to make Felix fall apart. Taking his _sweet, sweet time_ in doing it, because, as he puts it, they have three whole years to make up for.

Felix reaches back to slap a laugh out of him.

But there’s only so patient Sylvain can be, and soon enough, he’s pressing in his cock, rather than his fingers. A hot, careful slide of skin to skin, while Felix pants into the sheets, the pillows having been kicked off a long time ago.

Hand on Felix’s narrow hip, he guides him up and back, hooking around his waist while he lowers himself down to kiss the nape of his neck. Felix’s long hair spills twilight on the off-white bed, while he shudders and tenses; Sylvain feels his muscles flex against him, feels him clench, and groans with it.

His other hand finds where Felix’s has curled itself into the sheet, fits his fingers in the spaces between. Presses more, soft, slow kisses along Felix’s shoulder, his neck, biting at his ear. Only when Felix has started snapping at him, to, in his romantic words, _get on with it_ , does Sylvain begin to move.

Although he’d wanted to savor their reunion, it’s hard to swallow down their desperation, parched for each other as he knows now that they both have been; he closes his eyes to take in the sounds of Felix’s soft moans, his hitched breaths. Relishes the way his back curves to fit against Sylvain’s chest, the fine tremble of his legs while they brace against every thrust.

Sweat trickles down his temple, over his neck, while it begins to coat Felix’s back and shoulders in a fine sheen, and when he presses nose to hair, the slightest bit damp now, Felix is all he smells, too.

“Fe,” Sylvain whispers like a prayer, lips brushing over lamplit skin, “Felix. I love you.”

Felix groans, clenches his jaw shut.

“You’re beautiful, Fe.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Sylvain laughs. _Delighted_.

“Bastard.”

Holding back another, Sylvain nuzzles his way down the curve of hard muscle, leading from neck to shoulder, shaking with it before he presses one kiss, two, then _bites._

“Ah—!” Felix _shouts,_ throwing his head back. “Fuck you, _fuck you—”_

He’s almost done. Sylvain knows it, and knows Felix knows too, because he always gets mouthy and angry, like it’s only by some sense of _audacity_ Sylvain has to turn him into this.

“Tell me how it feels,” He demands, the urge to tease too, too strong. “Tell me. How does it feel to be here, like this, on all fours for me?”

“You _goddamn fucking—”_

But he’s cut off by Sylvain sliding arm around his hips, hauling him up and against him, pulling him back harshly enough to knock him to screams.

Then he gets a hand around Felix’s cock, solid and velvet-soft skin that he strokes and pumps, just the way he knows will make Felix desperate.

Makes him mindlessly push and rut into his hand, head dropped low between his shoulders. His voice stutters and breaks and curls in his throat until he’s positively _whining_ , coming hard and wet into Sylvain’s palm and across his fingers.

He keeps going, slowing only long enough to let Felix begin to catch his breath. He’s pliant, when Sylvain flips him over onto his back, chest still heaving, the sight of how wrecked he is almost doing Sylvain in. His cheeks are rose-brushed alabaster, mouth red and open.

But his eyes have gone soft, not just with his pleasure, but with what Sylvain knows that he, in all his fierce glory, _somehow_ , feels for a good-for-nothing like _him_. Even if the words are hard for Felix to say, he’s clear enough with the adoration in that gaze.

And the look stays, is still there as Sylvain bends over him, fucking him into the mattress until he finishes with a low, deep groan, grinding deep inside and shaking with it. His throat dry now, heart _pounding_ , before his mind settles back in his skull long for him to gently pull out.

Worn out and spent, he wants to collapse, almost does. For a moment, he considers doing just that, if only to hear Felix sputter and curse him out, pinned into the mattress. He’s interrupted by Felix himself, who gathers Sylvain up in his arms and pulls him down beside him.

And tangled they lay, exchanging exhausted kisses and soft, lingering touches.

While the storm settles outside the window, they breathe, and wonder, and dream while awake.

“Sylvain.” Felix murmurs against his chest, a message for his beating heart.

“Yeah?” Sylvain replies drowsily.

“I love you, too.”

-♦♦♦-

The room is freezing when they make it back from the adjacent bathhouse, where they’d spent as much time flicking water and soap at each other as much as they spent cleaning. Luckily, it was empty, so they hadn’t had to even pretend to hide away their mussed hair and the various bites and marks they’d left up and along each other.

“What do you expect the situation looks like, back at my house?”

Felix snorts, crouching beside the brazier while he gets it glowing hot.

“Yeah,” Sylvain agrees, “I don’t care, either.”

-♦♦♦-

When Sylvain wakes up at the crack of dawn, the first thing he does is pull a lock of long hair from his mouth.

-♦♦♦-

With the light of the sun, the landscape’s been turned to gleaming white, the mountains just a backdrop behind them.

Instead, the trails and fields are wide open, beyond the edge of the village. There’s already people grumbling and shoving through several inches of snow, trying to make paths through it before it freezes to ice.

Next to him, Sylvain’s face breaks into a grin.

“What’s that look for?” Felix asks, raising a questioning glance his way.

“No one’s coming after us _today_. Can you imagine what the mountain trails look like?”

Felix gives a playful scoff, which is all he has to say about it while he readjusts the scarf around his neck.

“So…where do we go now, and what do we do?” Sylvain asks while he stretches his back out, groans softly with the effort.

“Whatever we want, I suppose.” Felix answers.

Sylvain pauses. Considers this.

“Yeah. I like the sound of that.”

In the end, they decide to spend the day here, meandering through the town and planning their next move for once the roads are clear.

“I think we could both use a break from running.”, as Sylvain puts it.

“Mm.”

As they begin to wander, Felix slides his gloved hand into Sylvain’s. Automatically, he grasps back, squeezes gently. Beams down at him with eyes of honey tea, sweet enough to bring the heat up his neck and over his cheeks.

“Stop gawking at me.” He demands, and pulls Sylvain along behind him.

“But my love,” Sylvain protests, as though hurt, “You are so, so very hard to look away from.”

“Oh, shut it.”

Sylvain laughs. Long, loud, and real. It chimes deep and rich into the morning air, and even as he turns his face away, Felix smiles.


End file.
